"Fantastic Four" is the name of the movie--shown is Human Torch. Photo credit: 20th Centruy Fox.

"Fantastic Four" is the name of the movie--shown is Human Torch. Photo credit: 20th Centruy Fox.

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"Son of the Mask" is the name of the movie from New Line Cinema. Photo credit : New Line Cinema.

"Son of the Mask" is the name of the movie from New Line Cinema. Photo credit : New Line Cinema.

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"Blade: Trinity" is the name of the movie. Shown: Drake. Photo credit: New Line Cinema.

"Blade: Trinity" is the name of the movie. Shown: Drake. Photo credit: New Line Cinema.

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David Zbriger of San Bruno, is among the talent at Giant Killer Robots, who produced such effects as fire tools used for the Human Torch and the evil Dr. Doom�s Death Ray powers and created a virtual New York City for the Fantastic Four movie.
in San Francisco
8/3/05 Chris Hardy / San Francisco Chronicle less

David Zbriger of San Bruno, is among the talent at Giant Killer Robots, who produced such effects as fire tools used for the Human Torch and the evil Dr. Doom�s Death Ray powers and created a virtual New York ... more

Photo: Chris Hardy

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Cool job in a hot market / San Bruno resident and special effects team show Hollywood they have talent to burn

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Nobody knows for sure how we discovered fire but however the first man-made conflagration started, it must have been pretty neat: flames dancing unpredictably as our ancestors scurried to figure it out.

If you can imagine how incredible those flames must have been, the fire created recently by San Francisco special effects company Giant Killer Robots (commonly known by its initials: GKR) will really blow you away.

The computer-generated flames appear in the film "Fantastic Four," just about every time hotheaded Johnny Storm blazes across the screen. To make them come to life, pyromaniacal GKR artists spent weeks studying flames, lighting fires behind their Brannan Street offices and videotaping every flicker. With the help of tools that simulate fluid dynamics, artists digitized the video and transposed it onto a three-dimensional image of the actor. The result: a character known to comic fans as the "Human Torch."

This isn't the first time GKR has worked its magic; over the company's brief history, it has worked on nearly a dozen films of various genres, winning an Oscar and an Emmy along the way.

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While Hollywood movie houses send the majority of their special effects work to big-name Bay Area companies such as George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic in San Rafael and PDI/DreamWorks in Palo Alto, GKR is gaining recognition and market share as an up-and-coming boutique whose work is, well, hot.

"Every six months, we say, 'That was the biggest thing we've done so far, ' but somehow, we keep getting bigger and bigger," says Pete Oberdorfer, who founded the company in 1997 with friends Mike Schmitt and John Vegher and named it after a love the three shared for Japanese anime. "I have to tell you -- it's been quite a ride."

GKR has 20 full-time employees, and as many as 80 contract artists when the going gets hot.

To understand what GKR does, one must first understand how the special effects business works. When a movie is filmed, companies shoot all acting sequences without fanfare. They then ship certain scenes, or plates, to effects companies for enhancement. Most of these companies even the big ones, rarely are asked to do more than 100 scenes per film because studios usually delegate the work to numerous special effects houses. For "Fantastic Four," however, GKR generated more than 230, including all of the fire scenes, lightning scenes with Dr. Doom, and the backdrop for the concluding battle.

For the Doom scenes, GKR's creative team used physics-friendly rendering software to model computer-generated lightning after the real thing. For the fight scenes that end the film, the artists used a helicopter to capture aerial footage of New York's skyline and took thousands of photos to create a virtual Manhattan that mirrored the real thing. Kurt Williams, visual effects director for the film, says the attention to detail is what made GKR's special effects stand out.

"We knew this project required state-of-the-art visual effects and we needed the superpowers to look awesome," he says. "GKR delivered the goods."

Pretty much everything at GKR begins and ends at the desk of David Zbriger, a San Bruno resident with the title of digital asset manager. Stationed at a standard computer editing terminal, Zbriger takes plates from film companies and makes sure each frame is in good shape and numbered correctly. He distributes the plates to artists, and charts progress as the effects are developed. For "Fantastic Four," Zbriger handled plates for 85 artists. In comparison, other companies employ four asset managers for contracts of that size.

On most jobs, once the effects are complete, Zbriger takes the finished sequences and goes through all of them to make sure the work is up to snuff. With this step Zbriger performs quality assurance before films go back to the studios. It also allows the 30-year-old film school graduate to get sneak peaks at scenes that moviegoers won't see for months.

"For someone who loves movies as much as I do, this is the coolest job in the world," he says. After almost three years, Zbriger adds that the job still gets nerve-wracking on big films. "I'm surrounded by movies all day long. Even when it gets tense, that fact alone keeps me sane."

Over the years, there certainly have been enough films to keep employees interested. Soon after GKR was formed, the company began work on the Robin Williams movie "What Dreams May Come"; the film went on to win an Oscar for best visual effects. In 2003, GKR received an Emmy for its effects contribution to the Hallmark Entertainment mini-series "Dreamkeeper." Some of the company's other film credits include "Son of the Mask," "Blade: Trinity," "Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed" and "Matrix: Reloaded." What's next for GKR? Although Executive Producer Amber Wong says she can't reveal the company's next few projects, it's a safe bet the company will be working on something completely different from "Fantastic Four." Wong, who was hired in 1999, says that whatever the company does, it will be unique; because special effects technology is always advancing, GKR must always "reinvent the wheel" and learn the latest software programs in order to produce the greatest effects.

"For 'Scooby,' we did character work. For the 'Matrix' sequels, we did the underground cities of Zion," she says. "When you think about all of the different projects we've done over the years, the randomness of our work is what makes it fun."

GKR seems to be on fertile ground. San Francisco has sprouted several boutique special effects companies including the Orphanage in the Presidio and Tweak Films on Keyes Avenue.

"The Bay Area is where film and technology met to create a focus for improving special effects for films," Coyote said. "Much of the improvements began at (Lucas') ILM. People who got training and experience there started their own companies.

"I would imagine proximity to Silicon Valley is a factor," she said. "The industry got a foothold here and is growing. Plus, people want to live here. The industry has gotten used to coming to S.F. for its creative talent in special effects."

With all the special effects activity going on in San Francisco, one might speculate that GKR would be worried about increased competition.

On the contrary, both Wong and Oberdorfer embrace the challenge, saying that in a special effects business that is booming for companies of every size, the only firms that could present problems are houses in Canada, Australia and the Czech Republic that charge less for lower-quality work.

"The more work that can be drawn into the Bay Area, the better it is for everyone," Oberdorfer says. "We all want to make money, but everybody really gets into this business because we love it."